First, an overview of romantic music
Romantic music school is a new school after Vienna classical music school, which came into being at the beginning of19th century.
During this period, the artist's creation showed his admiration for subjective feelings, his love for nature and his fantasy for the future. New changes have taken place in artistic expression forms, and the formation and development of romantic ideas and styles have emerged. The difference between romantic music and classical music is that it inherits the tradition of classical composers and makes new explorations on this basis. For example, it emphasizes that music should be combined with other arts besides poetry, drama and painting, and advocates a comprehensive art; Advocate title music; Emphasizing the expression of personal subjective feelings, works are often autobiographical; The works are full of fantasy, and there are many works describing nature, because nature is calm and has no contradiction, which is an ideal realm; Pay attention to drama, study national folk music and literature, draw nutrition from it, and the works have national characteristics. In terms of artistic form and expression, it inherits the classical music school, but it is very different in content, and exaggerated techniques are also widely used. In the form of music, it breaks through the limitation of the balanced and complete formal structure of classical music and has greater freedom. There are many instrumental music with a single movement theme, mainly instrumental pieces, such as improvisation, nocturne, etude, narrative, fantasia, prelude, lyrics and various dance music-mazurka, waltz, polka and so on. Among many instrumental music works, piano music is in the majority. There are a large number of artistic songs in vocal music works, and many vocal music works are connected in series to form a suite, such as Schubert's Beautiful Mill Girl and Winter Journey, which are all innovative artistic themes of romantic music school. Harmony is an important tool to express romantic colors. The expansion and free use of dissonance, the frequent appearance of seventh and ninth chords, semitones and tone sandhi in music have expanded the scope and expression of harmony and enhanced the color of harmony. Composers created multi-movement title symphonies and single-movement title symphonies, which are important forms of romantic music.
Second, romanticism in music.
The meaning of the word romanticism originally refers to stories written in Roman style, and later refers to novels or knight stories, and later includes legendary novels. The rise of romanticism in art first appeared in the literature of18th century. In the works, all personal feelings, interests and talents are completely unrestricted. In other words, composers strongly show their hobbies. Theoretically, this is opposite to the classicism dominated by form. Classical music is linear and vivid, while romantic music is full of color and emotion, including many subjective and utopian factors. However, this is only a difference in principle. In fact, in classical music, there are already romantic factors, and in romantic works, there are also many classical contents.
Third, the formation of romantic music.
Early romantic music, like other sister arts, originated in the "Enlightenment Age" in Europe and the liberal and democratic ideas related to the French Revolution, which was about several decades later than the literary romanticism. Beethoven's later works became the pioneers of early romanticism, and later composers can be divided into romantics. In terms of time, 19 century is its heyday.
Fourth, the style of romantic music.
Romantic attention music is in sharp contrast with the rigorous, elegant and dignified style of classical music with its unique strong, free and unrestrained style. If Beethoven's music is only black-and-white movies or prints, then romantic music works are like watercolors and colored oil paintings. This period produced two different schools of romantic music. One is conservative romanticism represented by Brahms, and the other is positive romanticism. Romantic music period is also the most fruitful period in the history of European music development, which greatly enriched and developed the fine tradition of classical music and made bold innovations. Many music treasures of this period are still deeply loved and welcomed by people.
Five, the representative figures of romantic music
In the late works of classical composers Beethoven, Rossini and Weber, the style of romantic music has been exposed, and it is they who created romanticism. Composers born around 1800 formed the center of early romanticism. Schubert and Berlioz are representatives of early romantic music, and they formed their own unique schools from the traditions of Gluck, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Later, romantic music was further improved by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin and Verdi, and reached its peak in the era of Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Wagner. These composers and pianists formed the center of mid-term romanticism. As for the works of modern famous artists such as Mahler, Richard strauss and Rachmaninov, they belong to the late romantic music.
Liszt is a representative figure of the romantic music school in the middle period. He was born in Hungary. His outstanding contributions to music in his life are mainly in two aspects. First of all, he enriched the expressive force of piano skills.
His piano music not only has poetic sketches, but also has magnificent artistic effects and symphonic music, which makes the piano music have the effect of an orchestra, magnificent and passionate. Secondly, he initiated the genre of single movement title symphonic poetry. He wrote thirteen symphonic poems in his life, among which Prelude and Tasso are the most famous. These symphonic poems are narrative, lyrical, descriptive and dramatic. In addition, the distinctive Hungarian national characteristics are particularly prominent in Liszt's works, such as 19 hungarian rhapsody, which reflects Hungarian folk life, among which the 2nd, 6th, 12 and 15 are classics.
Richard Strauss is a composer of the late romantic music school. As a composer, Strauss's contribution is mainly manifested in symphonic poems. He perfected the structural form of symphonic poetry, carefully created the dominant motivation, and specially described the musical fragments of people, places and scenes. His outstanding talent in orchestral orchestration is also revealed. The lines and thoughts of his works are no less than those of various musical instruments, which makes a very common motive or theme in his works shine with the most fascinating brilliance. Strauss's opera creation is mainly influenced by Wagner's musical. Although his composition skills are superb, his content is pale and weak, much thinner than Wagner's works. His works are sometimes like an essay full of flowery rhetoric, but they are repeating an empty and boring content. Strauss is an outstanding master of classical creation and romantic music. Mozart's famous car, Beethoven's turmoil, Brahms' sense of structure, Wagner's heroism and Liszt's title music inspired his creative desire. His mastery of the orchestra makes his works exude charm, but the cultural characteristics at the end of the century are also fully reflected in his works, that is, the tendency of aestheticism and decadence. Together with Wagner, his creation heralded the arrival of music in the twentieth century.
Six, the representative works of romantic music
Romantic musicians, like stars, left many immortal works to future generations. Beethoven in Germany is the representative of Vienna classical music school and the transition period to romantic music school, and is known as "the music saint". His works are rich in themes, including piano sonatas, symphonies and chamber music, such as Pathetique, Moonlight, Pastoral Symphony, Hero Symphony and Destiny Symphony, all of which are included in world famous songs. Schubert of Austria started his music career before he was 20 years old. He wrote more than 600 artistic songs in his life and was called "the king of songs". Serenade is one of his masterpieces. In addition, he also composed symphonies, chamber music and piano music. Austrian Johann Strauss II composed his first waltz when he was less than seven years old. His waltzes, such as The Blue Danube, sound of spring and The Story of the Vienna Forest, are world-famous and are known as the "king of waltzes". Berlioz is the founder of romantic symphony, and his masterpiece is Fantasia. This is a romantic autobiographical work with literary titles. Its subtitle is "an artist's life fragment", and the plot clues of five movements are provided to the audience through more detailed text titles. Symphony fantasia is greatly influenced by Beethoven's pastoral symphony, showing more distinctive romantic characteristics.
Romantic music has also made brilliant achievements in opera. Rossini's works in Italy have beautiful melodies and exquisite techniques. He was also a pioneer of Bel Canto. Verdi's music works are full of lofty patriotism and national characteristics, which played a great role in the awakening of Italian national consciousness at that time. People respectfully call him "the master of Italian revolution". Her masterpiece La Traviata is a world-renowned masterpiece. Puccini's music is good at using new techniques besides directly adopting folk songs from various countries. For example, the China folk song Jasmine was used in Turandot. His representative works include Madame Butterfly and so on. Carmen, the representative work of French Bizet, is one of the best opera works in the world. It vividly embodies the characteristics of French music's pursuit of exquisite forms and has a distinct romantic color. Wagner's works in Germany are very original. His masterpiece The Ring of Nybrann Roots, which took nearly 20 years to complete, has distinctive German national characteristics.
Seventh, the historical position of romantic music.
The position of romantic music school in the history of music is self-evident. This period not only produced great musicians, but also had an unprecedented range of music genres, such as wordless songs, nocturnes, art songs, narrative songs and symphonic poems, which were novel and unique, and were a "treasure house" in the history of human art. Romantic music was also a bridge: Weber accepted the traditions of Gluck and Mozart and spread them to Wagner in modern times; Schubert is Beethoven's successor in instrumental music, and his romantic art songs have been passed down to this day through Schumann and Orff. Berlioz's title music originated from Beethoven's "Pastoral" symphony and was later associated with impressionism in modern France.
Eight, the characteristics of romantic music
Nation and democracy. Opposing foreign aggression and national oppression, feudal rule and national division are the main ideological contents of romantic music. In order to express these contents, shape the image of national heroes and embody patriotism and national unity, special attention is paid to absorbing the essence of national folk music in music style.
Human nature. Inspired by the great strength shown by the people in the bourgeois national democratic revolution, romantic musicians strive to truly express the mental outlook, social morality, aesthetics and ideals of ordinary people in their works. At the same time, in order to make their works understood, they developed the title of musical instruments and created a lot of scalar music.
Lyric. It is different from classicism which advocates rationality. Romanticism advocates sensibility, pays attention to revealing people's spirit and inner world, and expresses it through the composer's personal feelings. Therefore, lyrical personal psychological description and autobiography have become important features of romantic music, which has promoted the development of lyrical genre.
Fantasy. This is a technique used by composers to solve the contradiction between cruel reality and beautiful ideal in their works. Romantic composers like to choose themes and images from folklore and fairy tales precisely because they can provide a free world for their imagination.
New spirit. Romantic composers not only opposed cruelty politically, ideologically and morally, but also made bold innovations in art, music genre, form and creative techniques, which developed and enriched human music culture.